


begin/behold

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Pregnant with Monster(s), Threesome - M/M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 08:06:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13807044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jon agrees to carry some…thingfor the Eye when Elias asks, because he’s not sure there’s another choice to make.





	begin/behold

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted to write self-indulgent pregnant smut and i ended up with over 6k of whatever the fuck this is?

Jon agrees to carry some… _thing_ for the Eye when Elias asks, because he’s not sure there’s another choice to make. Because Elias looks discomforted at the asking, if only vaguely, and he might be - is - manipulative but so far he’s been _honest_ in his manipulations. He doesn’t lie or outright twist things, at least not now that everything’s on the table, just tells the truth and gives Jon enough rope to hang himself with. So if he looks discomforted the chances are that he really is, and if Elias is uncomfortable enough for it to show on his face but still asking then it’s presumably a request that _someone_ is going to have to agree to.

Or have sprung on them without them agreeing, for that matter. At least Jon theoretically has the option to say no, and— well. If being the Archivist means not being human, means being some kind of monster tied to the Eye, at least perhaps it also means this will go better for him than it might for anyone else. Especially given that he assumes his assistants would be the first place it would turn: to Melanie, who he can’t see reacting well; or to Tim or Martin, who it might be able to twist until they were capable of doing this but who will _not_ be twisted if Jon has anything to say about it.

So Jon agrees to it, and expects some kind of esoteric ritual, and instead gets Elias fucking him over a desk.

“I’m… connected enough to act as a vessel,” Elias tells him when he asks, or thinks about asking, or just thinks too hard about what’s happening. He’s lost track, a little, because while it might technically be functioning as some kind of ritual to impregnate him with whatever monstrous spawn the Eye wants out in the world, what’s _actually_ happening to him is a very long round of sex with his boss, who is apparently very good at this, and it’s a little difficult to keep his thoughts in order through that.

He does, however, manage to point out, “I thought ‘acting as a vessel’ was what _I_ was supposed to be doing?”

(it makes Elias bark out a laugh, and then he’s occupying Jon’s mouth with his fingers instead and so Jon gives up on trying to hold onto any thoughts long enough to say them)

* * *

Elias tells him it won’t last long, and initially Jon thinks of that as entirely a positive. He doesn’t consider that it’ll make everything so much, so fast, until it’s less than two weeks in and he’s in Elias’ office with his shirt unbuttoned so that Elias can investigate the small but firm swell of his stomach.

“It’s…” He trails off, distracted by Elias’ hand tracing over the skin. _Disconcerting_ , he wants to say, and _a lot_ , and _sort of uncomfortable_ , but then Elias is stroking his stomach more firmly and Jon thinks _sensitive_ instead and huffs out a breath, shifting in his chair.

“Yes,” Elias agrees, and Jon can’t tell whether he’s answering all of the unspoken thoughts or only the last. “I suspected as much.”

He slides his hand lower, then, slipping it into Jon’s boxers and stroking fingers over his clit until Jon is coming apart; clenching empty and wet and wanting and gripping at Elias’ shoulders desperately even as he curses at him. Elias only laughs indulgently at the curses, leaning in to kiss Jon and then occupying his mouth with getting Jon off a second time. This time he fills Jon’s cunt too; three fingers pressed into him too quickly, when he’s too close to coming for it to be entirely comfortable, and Elias’ lips and tongue working over his clit until Jon is clenching around his fingers with a ragged cry.

( _good boy_ , Elias tells him afterwards, and kisses him with lips he can taste his own slick on)

* * *

Jon ends up telling the others the next day. While it’s covered the swell of his stomach is only noticeable if someone’s looking for it, but that’s clearly not going to last much longer, and he’d rather tell them now, while it’s actually under his control.

Melanie can’t seem to decide if she’s more intrigued, disgusted or amused, which is about what he’d expected from her. Tim apparently settles on disgust, for at least as long as he stays in the room.

Martin, predictably, fusses over him. From that point on, Martin checks in periodically - does he need anything? Has he eaten? Is he comfortable? - and fetches him meals and offers, fairly regularly, to give him backrubs if he wants them. It’s… not entirely unpleasant, actually, even if Jon doesn’t really know how to respond to it most of the time.

“You could,” Elias suggests to him after a few days of it, “Just try going along with it.”

So Jon does, albeit awkwardly. He tries actually asking for things when Martin offers, without waiting for him to just bring food of his own accord or prompt specific things. He even agrees to one of the backrubs, on an afternoon where he’s particularly stiff and exhausted, and discovers quickly that Martin wasn’t exaggerating about being good at them. Jon ends up slumped back against him from where they’d started out sat on the cot Martin had used while he was sleeping in the Archives, while Martin nudges at his shoulders ineffectually.

“Come on, Jon, I can’t do anything with you like this…” Martin protests, though Jon can hear the smile in his voice.

“This is fine,” Jon tells him. “Just… give me a minute.”

When Jon wakes up, Martin has managed to maneuver both of them onto their sides without waking him, as well as get his glasses off. He can feel Martin’s body warm behind him, as well as one arm draped over him to curl almost protectively around Jon’s stomach, and he just ends up dozing there without moving until Martin wakes up too, and then watching Martin’s embarrassed happiness at it all while reassuring him that, no, that was fine, and that clearly he’d needed the sleep anyway.

(he thinks about the way Martin had held him, later, and realizes that he can’t bring himself to remind him that whatever’s inside Jon isn’t human and almost certainly doesn’t need protecting)

* * *

About a month in, Jon starts to register Tim staring at him whenever he thinks Jon isn’t looking. Sometimes he’s even right about the not looking part, but that’s starting to become less and less relevant these days - more to do with the thing he’s carrying than Jon himself, according to Elias, but apparently something Elias also hopes will linger.

Jon tries to ignore it, not wanting to make things worse between them, but the itching sensation of Tim’s eyes on him starts to wear on his nerves, until he gets to the point where he snaps. He’s tired, and the only craving the thing inside of him seems to give him is _information_ but the statements still wear him out, and so having a question hanging in the air that he wants the answer to is getting unbearable.

“Why do you keep staring? What do you _want_ , Tim?”

It’s snapped out, Jon halfway into Tim’s space in his anger, and he doesn’t register the compulsion he’s unconsciously threaded through the words until Tim is snapping back, “I want to fuck you. It’s messed up, how good you look like that.”

Jon, wide-eyed, has his hand over Tim’s mouth before Tim can say anything more, not sure how else to stop it once it’s started. Tim, for his part, obviously registers what Jon’s done then if he hadn’t before, and his own eyes go wide for a second before he shifts to looking mulish and clearly just waiting for Jon to move his hand.

“…sorry,” Jon mutters, pulling his hand away once he’s reasonably sure there’s no more compulsion hanging in the air between them. “Sorry. I didn’t— that wasn’t on purpose, I…”

Tim just shrugs, all forced calm despite the hostility visible under the surface of it.

“Well now you know, _boss_. Want to try firing me for inappropriate workplace behavior?” The bite in it doesn’t last all the way to the end, tailing off into something between tiredness and vain hope, and Jon’s heart aches at the sound of it.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and both of them know he’s not talking about the compulsion this time.

“Yeah, well, not like you’re any less trapped than the rest of us,” Tim mutters, then glances from Jon’s face to his stomach and back again. “Especially not with… that.”

“Yes. Well.” Jon looks away, and he can keep from compelling this answer from Tim but he can’t keep himself from asking, “Did you… mean what you said? About… me. This.” He gestures vaguely with a hand.

“Pretty sure that whole thing you do wouldn’t have let me lie.”

Jon can’t deny that, and to be fair it’s not as though it’s the kind of thing he thinks Tim would make up to mess with him even if the compulsion _did_ let him lie. So, yes, it being true is presumably really the case.

There are all kind of reasons it would be a terrible idea to act on. Jon can’t quite call any of them to mind right now, but they definitely exist. But he’s still stood in Tim’s space, and he’s overly aware of the fact that Tim wants to fuck him despite - because of? - the way he’s swollen out with some inhuman thing that he’s been beginning to feel squirming around inside of him lately.

“I wouldn’t…” Jon pauses, adjusting his glasses for something to do with his hands, and then goes on, “I wouldn’t say no. Actually.”

Tim blinks at him, clearly not having expected that.

“I probably should,” Jon adds. “Say no, I mean. But I wouldn’t.”

Tim blinks again, and then hazards, “Can you, even? With… whatever that is?”

Jon focuses very firmly on anything _other_ than what he’s saying, which is, “If sex is off-limits, Elias would be… in some trouble, I think.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Tim is laughing - and god, when’s the last time Jon heard _that_? - and saying as he pulls them toward Jon’s office, “Right, well, if this is happening then let’s _not_ talk about you fucking Elias, yeah?”

(“I see you and Tim are getting along better,” Elias tells Jon later, and when Jon thinks about smacking him, Elias just laughs and tugs at the tie knotted around his wrists that Jon realizes now was entirely planned for this moment)

* * *

Martin asks to feel it, when Jon lets on that the thing inside of him is moving around enough for that. He ends up sat on the cot next to Jon, one hand pressed over the swell of Jon’s stomach, frowning in concentration. It turns to a beaming grin when the thing inside Jon squirms about and nudges up into the contact, and Jon doesn’t really know what to make of it.

He still doesn’t know if he can bring himself to remind Martin that whatever this thing is, it isn’t human and probably isn’t actually something either of them will ever want to encounter once it’s out. But Martin asks him what’s wrong, the next time he looks at Jon’s face, and Jon ends up chewing at his bottom lip for long moments before blurting out what he’d been thinking.

“I know that, Jon,” Martin says. He’s back to frowning again, although he doesn’t move his hand away from where the thing inside Jon seems to be giving a good attempt at pummelling it. “I’m not stupid. I know it’s… But it’s still yours, at least right now. That’s the part that’s important.”

Jon blinks at him. It’s the first time anyone’s suggested that - he’s not thought of it as his, Tim doesn’t really acknowledge its existence beyond the admitting that he finds Jon hot with the bump, and even Elias has never actually suggested any connection between him and it beyond the fact that he’s the one who happens to be carrying it - and he’s not sure how to feel about it.

“It’s not… it’s not _mine_ ,” he settles on eventually. “It’s just… it’s there. That’s all.”

Martin finally pulls his hand away to lean back against the wall, and Jon tries not to mourn the loss of contact.

“I think it still counts,” Martin says, quiet. “Or… it’s important, anyway, even if it isn’t yours.”

“It’ll be the kind of thing people make statements about.”

Martin lifts his hand to his mouth to chew at his thumbnail, and Jon has to fight the urge to bat his hand away from his mouth. If Martin wants to ruin his fingernails, it’s not his place to do anything about it.

“I think,” Martin says, after a while of silence, “That we all are? At least a little bit. Maybe still a little bit more the people making the statements, but I think we’re all getting there. To the other side of it.”

He sounds so matter-of-fact about it. Like it doesn’t bother him, the thought that maybe the assistants are becoming something less than human in this place too. Jon doesn’t know if he’s right - he half-suspects they’re more likely to stay helplessly, uselessly human until something picks them off and he has to watch - but it still makes his chest ache the way that Martin just accepts the possibility of it anyway.

“How does it not— how do you live with that?” Jon ends up asking.

“You’ll think it sounds silly,” Martin says, and his ears are going pink under his curls. “But some things are worth it? I mean… if I’d have known from the start, maybe I wouldn’t have come here, but… it’s not all bad, right?”

He meets Jon’s eyes, then, and his cheeks are pink and he’s clearly embarrassed but he’s smiling, too, a shy little smile that makes Jon’s heart thump painfully in his chest; makes him think _this man loves me_ and _I don’t deserve him_ in the same breath.

Jon kisses him because he doesn’t know what else to do; because there’s nothing else _to_ do in the face of that. He kisses Martin and Martin kisses back, and it’s nothing like kissing Elias (matter-of-fact, with Elias firmly in control) or Tim (wild and rough and biting); it’s shy and awkward and half-desperate all at once, and Jon comes out of it even more wrecked than Elias or Tim usually leave him. When he pulls back he’s crying, and Martin holds onto him tight and lets Jon sob it all out, lets Jon shake in his arms until he’s wrung-out and exhausted with it.

“I’m sorry,” Jon breathes into Martin’s shoulder once he’s finally cried himself out. “That wasn’t exactly… I’m not very good at this.”

Martin laughs, quietly, and presses a kiss to the top of Jon’s head. The gesture feels so loving that Jon thinks he’d start crying again if he actually had it in him.

“You obviously needed it,” Martin says. “That’s enough for me.”

It really would be, Jon thinks, or at least Martin would make sure that it would be. If Jon wanted nothing more than that one kiss, Martin would content himself with that - it would hurt him, definitely, but he wouldn’t fight for more than Jon was willing to give.

(Jon barely knows what to do with the idea of someone loving him that much, but he knows that in the face of it he wants to give Martin everything he has to give)

* * *

“So are you fucking Martin, too?”

It’s asked while he has Tim’s cock buried inside of him and Tim’s hands rubbing circles over his stomach, and Jon hardly thinks it’s fair. He can hardly be expected to maintain a conversation like this - sat in Tim’s lap and getting fucked while Tim bites at his ears and the back of his neck - but apparently he _is_ expected to do exactly that.

“I thought,” he bites out, trying for as much acid as he can manage when he can’t actually catch his breath, “That we weren’t going to talk about what I’m doing with other people.”

“That was about Elias, not Martin,” Tim responds immediately. He’s much too in-control of his voice, and it’s not at all fair. “So, _are_ you fucking Martin?”

“What— what makes you think that, anyway?” Jon asks instead of answering.

It’s not exactly a masterful manipulation of the conversation, and Tim’s snort against his neck - followed by Tim’s teeth against his neck, which makes him jolt and groan - tells him exactly how ridiculous Tim thinks the question is.

“He’s been walking around the place like all his dreams have come true,” Tim tells him. “And given how slutty this—” he pinches Jon’s stomach, “—seems to have made you, boss, I figured you probably were.”

Jon resents the fact that the words and the pinch combine to have him clenching around Tim’s cock immediately, and he resents even more the fact that Tim gives him maybe thirty seconds to come down from it before he has two fingers on Jon’s clit and is tilting him forward to fuck him at a bruising pace while he’s still twitching and oversensitive. Jon comes again before Tim does, or maybe comes twice - he can’t tell, not when he’s being given no time to recover and so he can’t tell if he’s coming twice or just never stopped the first time - and by the time Tim comes, he’s so oversensitive that he he nearly sobs when Tim pulls out.

Tim is always gentle with him afterwards at least, and today is no exception; he helps clean Jon off and get him back into his clothes, and obligingly gives him two fingers to suck on until Jon feels vaguely functional again. He doesn’t even comment on the finger-sucking, when it comes after the sex.

“I’m not,” Jon says eventually, once he’s in control of his faculties enough to try sentences. “I haven’t. With Martin, I mean. Not… not that, anyway.”

Tim raises an eyebrow, clearly waiting for him to expand on that, but when Jon doesn’t say anything more he just shrugs.

“Well. I wouldn’t say no to both of you, if you ever do.” He says it casually, like he’s suggesting he wouldn’t mind getting lunch with them. A year or so ago, he probably _was_ having threesomes about as casually as he was having lunch dates, knowing Tim.

“I’ll… mention it,” Jon ends up saying, because he’s not sure what else to say. “If we do.”

(and in the meantime, he’ll try not to be too distracted by the thought of it)

* * *

The Stranger sends a… thing into the Archives. It’s not human - Jon barely has to look at it to know that, despite whoever’s skin it’s wearing over the top of whatever it really is. It realizes it’s been caught out almost as soon as he realizes where it’s come from, and pulls itself up to its full height, stops trying to play at humanity.

It’s nothing so much as the Not-Them, but it’s still a threat, especially while he’s swollen with the thing inside him; that’ll slow him down, and he’s gathered that it’s important to the Eye, at least, and that he can’t afford to let the Stranger get at it.

He’s trying to think of what to do when Martin barrels out into the corridor and puts himself between Jon and the not-a-human thing. Which— it shouldn’t be a _surprise_ , should it? This is probably exactly what the assistants are supposed to be there for, and with how much Martin loves him it’s no wonder that he’d dive right in without thinking about it. But that thing isn’t something Martin can stop, and Jon is— Jon is _angry_ at it. Because Martin is his (theirs), because Martin is someone he cares (they care) about, because he won’t let the Stranger take another one of his assistants if he has the power to stop it and right now he _does_ (they do).

So he reaches out without reaching, and feels the thing that isn’t supposed to be there and isn’t _allowed_ to take his (their) assistant, and he _wrenches_ and snaps its senses away from it, into his (their) grip.

It collapses like a puppet with its strings cut, and Jon can feel the sensation of it hitting the ground like an echo on his skin; firmly enough to hurt, but detached enough to make it distinct from anything he’s feeling himself. The not-a-human is… not panicking, exactly - he’s not sure it’s capable, to be honest - but it’s confused, and lost, because what passes for a mind is tied to its body but all of the sensations of that body are apart from it.

He can hold it, he decides, at least for now. He picks through what he can tell from it without much effort, and decides that if it’s removed from the Institute, its first order of business will be to crawl back to whoever or whatever its master is and try to explain what happened, rather than just trying again immediately.

When he focuses beyond the not-a-human, it’s to register Martin shaking his shoulders and asking him if he’s okay.

“Yes,” he says, too sharp to be entirely convincing. “I’m fine. Take that out of here. It won’t fight.”

The look on Martin’s face says he’ll be expecting an explanation later, but he glances between Jon and the not-a-human and then nods and sets to getting it up, and then to just dragging it when it becomes obvious that he doesn’t have the strength to lift it when it’s a dead weight.

The sensations are less than pleasant, but the sensations aren’t the only thing that Jon has access to at the moment. He tunes out the dragging and focuses instead on trying to pick out what he can learn about the not-a-human, and the deeper he digs the less it’s Jon digging and the more it’s the Archivist. And the thing inside him, he realizes, lending him the ability to do this in the first place, because it doesn’t have much of a mind yet but it’s been feeding off of his experiences and it knows Martin by touch besides that, and so neither of them had wanted to let this skin-clad doll hurt him.

He keeps digging into what passes for the doll’s mind as Martin gets it outside, and keeps the hold he has on it as Martin leaves it and gets back inside because as much as it’ll go back to its master when it’s let go he doesn’t trust it not to lash out if Martin is still right there. And then he can hear Martin’s footsteps receding through the doll’s ears, and he could let it go. Could let it have its senses back and the jumbled memories of the time between the grab and the release - the perception it would have of simply crumpling to the floor and letting a human drag it out uncontested, with no understanding of why - and let it run back to its master, but—

But there’s still more that the Archivist could learn from it, and he’s the Archivist so that’s what he’s _supposed_ to do. The sharp stab of panic at that thought from something that isn’t him and isn’t the doll is confusing, but not exactly _relevant_ , and so what he should do is keep ahold of the doll’s senses until he’s dragged out every bit of information available, and—

Someone slaps him, and the Archivist blinks and focuses enough to register Elias, who’s gripping his cheeks then and staring into his eyes, slightly wild-looking.

“Jon,” he’s saying, firm and hurried, and more worried-sounding than the Archivist has learned to expect from him. “Jon. Let it go. You need to let it go, Jon.”

The name doesn’t mean anything at first, but the more Elias says it the more it registers that, right, that’s him. He’s Jon, and he’s the Archivist but he’s not _just_ the Archivist, and oh, god, does his head hurt. Jon lets go of his grip on the doll’s senses and the awareness of them snaps away from him so hard that it hurts, and then he more-or-less just collapses into Elias’ grip, clutching at his head with a groan. He can feel the thing inside of him making wild flips, and he gets the feeling he’s just distressed it as much as he’s distressed himself.

Elias manages to pick Jon up with some effort, and to start carrying him back to Elias’ office before Martin catches up to them. Martin instantly starts to ask questions, but Elias silences him with a look, and Jon’s headache makes him more grateful for that than he’d like to admit.

Once they reach Elias’ office, Elias ignores the chairs completely to just sit down on the floor, positioning Jon half in his lap and running cool fingers over Jon’s forehead. Jon is shaking, he finds, and he lets out a miserable groan and tries to work out whether he’s actually about to throw up all over Elias or if it just feels that way.

“Martin,” Elias says, voice soft enough that Jon’s head at least doesn’t protest _too_ much, “I need you to talk to Jon. Tell him facts, information. Things he doesn’t know would be best.”

Martin blinks, but between the state of Jon and the worry clear in Elias’ voice he doesn’t question it, just launches into a stammering ramble - something about dogs, and dog breeds. And then he evidently runs out of that but hasn’t said enough for Elias’ liking, because Elias gestures for more and he ends up starting on about spiders instead; not a topic Jon tends to enjoy hearing about, but it _is_ one that Martin can talk about at length.

It helps, oddly enough. The longer Martin talks, the more the shakes die down and the less his head hurts, and the feeling like he’s been hollowed out starts to fade too until he’s just slumped against Elias, still exhausted but no longer feeling like he might actually be dying. The thing inside of him settles down too, though it gives one last smack that feels almost like a rebuke, somehow.

“What… what was all of that?” Jon rasps out, once he trusts himself to speak again.

Elias pauses for a moment where he’d been stroking his fingers through Jon’s hair, glancing down at his face before he starts the motion up again.

“The thing that you’re carrying operates by observing without _being_ observed,” Elias tells him. “As a defense, or to help enable that, it can strip away something’s senses temporarily and experience them for itself. When Martin was in danger, you took advantage of that and wielded it against the thing that the Stranger sent. It’s not something the Archivist is supposed to do, however, and you got lost in the ability to learn from that thing.”

He taps Jon’s chin, making Jon tilt his head up toward him, and adds, “You continue to have problems with moderation, clearly.”

Jon pulls a face in response, and then glances at Martin. “And the… talking?”

“You drained the both of you. Information was the quickest way to fix that, and you needed it fixed quickly.” Elias looks at Martin himself, then. “Thank you for providing.”

“It’s— I’m glad I could help,” Martin says, looking like he’s not sure what to do with himself now that everything seems to be more-or-less fine and the spider lecture isn’t called for anymore. “You didn’t let me before.” That part is directed at Jon.

“It would have killed you,” Jon answers, giving up on the fight to keep his eyes open in the face of Elias continuing to stroke his hair. “We weren’t going to let that happen.”

Martin blinks, and Jon knows it without opening his eyes. “We?”

“Mm,” he confirms. “It agreed that that thing couldn’t take you.”

If Martin says anything more, Jon’s too close to sleep to register it. He does register Martin taking his hand, though, and reaching up to set his other hand on Jon’s stomach.

(he falls asleep like that, with Martin there and Elias warm behind him and still stroking his hair)

* * *

Martin touches him even more after that, which Jon would hardly have thought possible at this point. Touches his arm in passing and hugs him often and asks to feel the thing moving even more often than that. The last of those always makes the thing feel so _fond_ that it practically knocks Jon off of his feet.

They’re agreed on this thing - that Martin is good, and to be protected - anyway, and between that and Martin’s infectious warmth, Jon finds himself growing more attached to the thing inside him, despite the knowledge that he probably _shouldn’t_ be. It’s harder as the thing gets more aware, though, as Jon starts feeling what it’s feeling now and then.

It doesn’t seem to like Tim a great deal, from what he can tell, which he supposes makes sense; most of his contact with Tim these days involves things that are jostling it, and Tim’s still the least inclined of them to actually feed the Beholding. It feels vaguely positive about Elias, but doesn’t exactly care about him - which is about what Elias feels about it in return, as far as Jon can tell. It doesn’t seem to feel much at all about anyone else, most likely because Jon’s not in enough contact with them - at least, not physically, and so it’s not coming into contact with them - for it to know them.

It likes Martin, though. It’ll prod against his hand instantly if he touches Jon’s stomach, and when it’s being active enough to distract Jon, curling up with Martin on the cot tends to settle it down immediately.

The problem, Jon decides, is that - as much as the thing inside of him projects fondness and pleasure around Martin and that’s nice, and as much as he enjoys watching Martin’s face light up when he feels it move, or getting to curl up with Martin or kiss him or be held by him - because of the thing inside him, Martin seems inclined to treat him like he’s made of glass. Any attempt to escalate from kissing just makes Martin fuss, and it’s getting frustrating.

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” Martin insists again the next time it comes up, and Jon hisses through his teeth.

“Look,” he ends up suggesting, barely even thinking about it, “Would it help if you _knew_ what I can take without you hurting me?”

Martin blinks at him. “I mean… sure, but how?”

There’s a pause then as Jon’s brain catches up with his mouth, and he very carefully doesn’t meet Martin’s eyes as he suggests, “You could watch. With— well. I don’t think Elias would mind, but Tim did, uh. Well. He offered.”

Martin is going incredibly pink.

“He offered?”

“ _Well_ ,” Jon admits, “He said he wouldn’t mind… both of us. But this would count, I assume.”

Jon’s surprised when Martin actually agrees to it, because he’d half expected him not to. Hell, he’d half expected that he’d end up panicking and taking it back before Martin _could_ agree to it. But neither of those happens; Martin agrees, and Jon doesn’t take it back, and they end up calling Tim to Jon’s office and putting it to him.

Tim laughs, in a way that’s not quite mocking but not quite _not_ mocking at the same time, but he agrees to it.

“You’re both useless at this,” he tells them, “But it’s what I would have expected, so there’s that.”

Tim has Jon strip, and then just looks over him long enough to have him flushing all over with embarrassment.

“Floor,” he says, once he’s apparently had his fill of eyeing Jon up. “Hands and knees will give Martin the best view, don’t you think?”

Jon’s stomach is big enough by this point that it’s not quite the easiest thing to manage, but he does as he’s told and ends up staring up at Martin, who’s sat in his chair and staring down at Jon like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. He’s already hard under his clothes, too, and Jon can’t help the way his mouth waters at the sight.

Tim doesn’t go easy on him - “You want to show him what you can take, right?” - and before long Jon has dropped down enough that his arms are resting against the floor, head pillowed on top of them and mouth hanging open as Tim fucks him open. He’s still watching Martin, though it’s hard to concentrate, and Martin looks like he’s somewhere between ‘worried’ and ‘hard enough to hurt’.

“You could have his mouth,” Tim points out. “No worries there. And he enjoys sucking cock. Don’t you, boss?”

Jon nods helplessly, and whines out, “ _Mar_ tin, _please_.”

That’s all Martin can take, apparently, because he scrambles down to kneel on the floor in front of Jon, freeing his cock and then practically yelping when Jon lifts himself up to take Martin’s cock in his mouth immediately. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, but eventually he settles on just stroking his fingers through Jon’s hair awkwardly while Jon sucks at his cock like he’s starved for it.

“Lot easier to tolerate when your mouth is full,” Tim says from behind him, laughing breathlessly when Jon moans around Martin’s cock despite himself. A moment later, he directs at Martin, “He likes it when you pull his hair, you know.”

Martin looks torn, and tries to stammer out a protest, but then looks down at Jon’s face and whatever he sees there has him tugging hesitantly; not enough to actually hurt, like it usually is from Tim and sometimes is from Elias, but enough to have him moaning around Martin’s cock and to have his cunt clenching around Tim’s.

Tim makes him come until he’s lost count, and all the while he has his head between Martin’s legs; whenever Martin gets too close, he’ll pull Jon back by his hair and make him strain for it for long moments before he can move forward again. When Tim finally comes, Martin pulls Jon back again. Watches Jon strain forward and beg _please, Martin_ , with his voice wrecked, and instead Martin just reaches down with his other hand to stroke his cock until he’s coming across Jon’s face and making him moan helplessly.

“I wouldn’t have expected that from _you_ ,” Tim says. “Good look on him though, yeah?”

“I. Well. Maybe? Yes. Definitely, yes.” Martin’s looking flustered now, like he can’t believe what he just did, and Tim just laughs and sets about getting Jon cleaned up and settled between them.

(afterwards, curled up between them with Tim on one side and Martin on the other, with two of Tim’s fingers loosely in his mouth and one of Martin’s arms curled around the swell of his stomach, Jon thinks _I love you_ at them both and doesn’t know how to say it to either)

* * *

“You’ve been getting along with Tim and Martin,” Elias comments.

He’s taken Jon home for once, on the insistence that Jon needed some rest in a better bed than the cot in the Archives or his own bed at home. Given the size of his stomach at this point and how much everything has apparently decided to ache alongside, Jon certainly isn’t going to complain. He just opens one eye when Elias speaks, waiting for more, though he doesn’t bother to lift his head from the pillow.

“They’re not there for you to be so attached to,” Elias goes on, and Jon practically hisses at him for it.

“You could have stepped in sooner, if it’s a _problem_ ,” he spits back. “It’s not like this happened overnight.”

“I could have.” It’s said quietly enough to make Jon go silent, to make him open his other eye to squint at Elias. “Call it sentimentality. You’ve… lit up, these past few months.”

Jon can’t tell whether he believes the idea that Elias would be _sentimental_ , especially about him, but he stares up at Elias’ face and decides that he _can_ believe it, at least. That it’s possible, even if he can’t tell whether it’s actually true. He sighs, and shuts his eyes again.

“I’m not giving them up.”

“No,” Elias agrees. “I didn’t expect you would. I ought to push you to, but… well.”

 _Sentimentality_ hangs in the air between them, unspoken, and then Elias goes on, “I can’t promise that they’ll survive, Jon. The Archivist’s assistants aren’t generally intended to. If you have this, you cannot let it break you if they die.”

Jon huffs out a sharp breath. “Or if you die, or Melanie dies, or this thing makes it five minutes out in the real world. The Archivist just keeps on archiving through it all, I _know_.”

Elias blinks, and Jon knows it without opening his eyes. He is, Jon thinks, torn between questioning his own inclusion on the list or questioning the inclusion of the thing inside Jon. In the end, he settles for reaching out to press his hand against Jon’s stomach.

“I wasn’t aware you cared that much.”

Jon just snorts softly, shifting a little as the thing smacks at Elias’ hand.

“It grew on me. Well. In me.” He pauses, and then mutters into the pillow, “And carrying some kind of monster spawn apparently does wonders for the love life.”

Elias barks a laugh at that, which Jon had expected, and it’s… nice, honestly.

“So I’d noticed,” Elias agrees, and traces his hand across the swell of Jon’s stomach, letting the thing try to follow the movement with smacks in return. There’s not enough room left for it to be all that successful at it by now.

“Well,” he adds, “There are always more where this one came from, if you ever need more help on that front.”

(it’s a joke, but it’s also a question and an offer, and Jon just snorts into the pillow in return and tries to pretend he’s not even considering taking Elias up on the offer)


End file.
